I never told anyone.
Not my friends. Not my classmates. Not even my closest one.
It wasn't because they would judge me.
It was because I didn't know how to explain it.
How do you say, "I'm emotionally attached to someone who doesn't know I exist, but not in a crazy way, just in a quiet, comforting way"?
It sounds stupid even inside my own head.
In school, girls talked about real crushes.
Boys from tuition. Senior from 9th class. Someone who looked cute during sports day.
They had real names. Real faces. Real possibilities.
And I would just sit there and nod.
If they asked me, "You like someone?"
I'd shrug.
"No."
Which wasn't exactly a lie.
Because I didn't "like" him like that.
Right?
I didn't want to hold his hand. I didn't want him to confess to me. I didn't imagine wedding dresses or dramatic airport scenes.
I just liked watching him exist.
That's it.
But still, it felt too personal to share.
At home, things were simple.
Mummy would ask about homework. Papa would ask about marks. Electricity bill discussions. Grocery calculations.
Life wasn't bad.
It was just… practical.
No one had time to talk about feelings.
Especially not feelings about a foreign idol from a band nobody in my house had heard of.
So I kept it inside.
My little secret.
Late at night, after everyone slept, I would lower my brightness and scroll quietly.
Volume almost muted.
Watching clips of Seo Juhan laughing.
Reading comments from other fans who sounded so confident.
"Future husband." "He belongs to us." "I would die if I met him."
I never commented.
I never posted.
I never followed fan accounts publicly.
I just observed.
Silently.
Sometimes I wondered if I was a fake fan.
I didn't know inside jokes. Didn't memorize birthdays. Didn't stream songs repeatedly.
I just… felt something.
And that felt enough.
There was one moment I remember clearly.
A classmate once said, "These idol fans are crazy. They act like they'll marry them."
Everyone laughed.
I laughed too.
But my stomach tightened.
Not because I wanted to marry him.
But because I suddenly felt exposed.
Like someone had almost discovered something fragile inside me.
That night, I didn't watch any clips.
I told myself, "This is childish."
I tried to act mature.
But before sleeping, my mind automatically replayed one of his smiles.
And I felt calm again.
That's when I realized something scary.
This wasn't just entertainment anymore.
It had become comfort.
And comfort is hard to give up.
Even when you pretend it's not important.
I didn't know how long this phase would last.
I just knew one thing.
As long as it stayed secret, as long as no one laughed at it, as long as it lived only inside me—
It felt safe.
And maybe that's why I protected it so much.
Because in a world where everything felt average…
This was the only thing that felt quietly special.
Even if it existed only on a screen.